


From This Abyss

by kosmokomik (orphan_account)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drama, F/M, Romance, Sexual Content, UST
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:50:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kosmokomik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let's say I know better than to try and control you." </p><p>"How about manipulating me?" </p><p>His eyes shift slightly, one corner of his mouth moving up. "Now that is a different matter entirely."</p><p>A series of vignettes exploring the relationship between one Commander Iza Shepard and the Illusive Man as they play games with each other and those they can use as pawns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I: Of Insidious Intent

He smokes the good stuff – not the cheap, Omega-rolled crap that's a credit chit a dozen. Not the Citadel-safe derivatives, not the tar-free ones that feel like a weak breath into your mouth. The Illusive Man smokes the real things – tar-filled, nicotine-staining, smoke so thick and heavy Iza Shepard can feel it damaging her lungs. It's been too long, but she can't smoke properly. The smoke just touches the back of her throat and goes out again, doesn't make it all the way down. When she coughs, he takes the cigarette out from between her dry lips (the edges of them have a bitter metallic taste) and puts it out in the ashtray. As if to say,  _behave, your body is pristine. Keep it that way_. As if he wants her purity for a while longer.

She wonders about the extent he's re-built her, how... Clean... She is. Odd thought, but she always did have a depraved mind. One evaluation which she caught a peek of once mentioned it: the passing remark was like a backhand slap considering the lack of moral high-ground the officer in question had, but it hadn't stopped her rising in rank.

The icy blue iris moves like the layers of an omni-tool, shifting across each other in circular patterns, not quite focused on Shepard, not quite staring into space.

Pulling out graphic charts and rendered videos, he shows her: there's no sign of any of the minor health complaints she had (" _not from lack of trying to reproduce it, though_ ") and she's almost exactly like she was before. "It's your body, just new. Make of it what you will." The skeleton is more or less non-organic; there are implants all throughout her body. There's no way around it, she's enhanced, but not an artificial construct just yet.

Surveillance video from the first time her heart had beaten. A recording of her first wake-up: she looked gruesome, barely a skeleton with skin stretched taut over it.

It's a bit too new, a bit too fresh. Feels awkward as she moves past the holographic screens (she makes a note that nothing on the screen makes any sense to her; encrypted for his eyes only in all likelihood) and to the foot-thick window – her heavy boots leave scratch-marks on the impeccably smooth floor surface, denting the reflection of the white-hot star in it. The limbs are stiff, unused to moving like you do in reality, having only been trained with electric shocks and machines.

"What else did you put in?" she asks over her shoulder, half-turned, one eye on him.

"Miranda suggested a control chip. I said no." With a smooth move of his fingers the holographic interface shuts down and he lights up another cigarette. "Small improvements on the level of genetic therapy. Nothing you'll miss, and nothing that would significantly alter you."

Shepard tries cracking her neck but winces instead, the sensation of small needles fanning out from the bone into the muscle and sinew. She catches sight of herself in the mirror, the ash-blonde hair barely grown past her chin. "See you got my natural hair color back."

"I'm not going to sit around and pretend you're just like you were. Death, if anything, ought to change something, but time will sort that out for you." Exhale. The smoke covers his eyes from view, just a vague glint of them through it. "Precious time that you have less and less of. No time for being sentimental."

Shepard knows as much – and she appreciates that about him. That he knows what she knows, that she doesn't have to explain or bang her head against his refusal to acknowledge what's out there, undistinguishable, the monsters at the rim of the galaxy. The shadows moving through her nightmares.

"I studied some of your sketches from the Prothean visions you got."

When Iza grew up on Mindoir, she'd been living with charcoal fingers, leaving dirty fingerprints wherever she went – but her drawings were always crisp and clean; her art teacher had commented once,  _too life-like_. They unnerved a lot of people, but it was her strength, her ticket to the galactic pulse and art school. After the attack, though, she gradually lost interest in her teenage dream, letting it slip away as she enlisted.

The Prothean visions, however, had compelled her to draw again. The technique was still there, a bit rusty, but not forgotten. She'd kept the sketches in her shoebox-sized sublet of the Tayseri Ward on the Citadel – it hadn't even been in her name, or properly her ownership. Last time she was on the Citadel (after Saren's assault she left and didn't come back, too perturbed at knowing the station's real purpose) the ward had been inaccessible, her building crushed to smithereens under the debris.

"I thought all of that was lost."

The Illusive Man leans forward in his seat, handing her a see-through folder in which there are drawings. Some corners damaged and torn, a smudge here and there, but practically intact.

He has gone to excessive lengths to secure all the scraps he could gather up from her past to build her. Merely looking at them makes the vision flash through her mind again – but weaker, painless – nearly meaningless in how little it affects her.

Shepard gives them back to him, their fingers brushing at the exchange of papers. (She: lukewarm, him: cold.) "Keep them, I don't need them." If he is disappointed, it doesn't show – hell, if he was feeling anything, it wasn't likely to surface at all. "What are you getting at?"

"I'm just trying to make you understand the lengths I've gone to for you. Cerberus worked hard to recover everything about your life, Shepard." He meets her eyes; his gaze sends a shiver down her spine, because of how decidedly  _un-human_  it is. "I worked hard to recover you."


	2. II: I am Lazarus, Come From the Dead

Truth's a two-sided coin: she's as much Iza Shepard as she isn't.

Well, Shepard she  _can_  be. Shepard is the name widely recognized, the one she's known by and which an entire galaxy has labelled one thing or another. It's just a role, a Shepard-sized hole in the universe she can fit herself rather snugly into. Iza is a different matter.

Somehow he'd recovered an old, paper-and-pen-written journal she kept. Vaguely, she recalls it: the motion of opening and closing the covers to scribble a quick note in the margins, stuffing it into bags to take with her wherever she went, of her minute hand-writing taking months to cover even a single page. The letters are tiny and hard to distinguish. She started it when she was fifteen and head overflowing with ideas for artworks, then delved into the vacuum of non-events that followed Mindoir before swinging full-force into her military career.

It rests, opened to the final written page, on the desk. Her twenty-ninth year, as far as she got. Last entry is three days before Miranda claims the Normandy got sheared in half, reading simply:  _Nothing but the tedium of nothing_.

A note lays next to it, his cursive lettering flourishing over the bleach-white paper slip.  _With my compliments_. No name signed – though how do you sign a letter with a code name like his? It's pompous. Like him.

Returning to her cabin, there would always be a gift from him waiting for her on the desk, held in secure containers, only opening after a DNA test. Miranda fumed but pretended not to. Jacob didn't react, blinded by the armaments bestowed upon them by the Illusive Man, too preoccupied with inspecting top-of-the-line guns to see Shepard disappear up to her quarters.

All gifts pieces of a life he'd rescued from the depths of the void, and she was left puzzling them together. She remembered it all – that wasn't it – she just felt disconnected from the Shepard before. That it's not her life to claim, though she sometimes does: smiling when Zaeed realizes they've skirmished in the line of duty, on different sides of the battlefield. She was about to point out a deformation in her tattoo (courtesy of his grenade, five years ago) but shirt pulled up, there's nothing there.

(Zaeed had laughed and patted her skin, thumbing her ribs, little finger skimming over her belly button. He remarks that she shouldn't have one if she's vat-grown. She corrects him: reconstructed. He asks, smirking, what else she has – or hasn't – got.)

The Illusive Man's attention to detail in reconstructing her insides was flawless, but she misses the sprawling tattoos and particular scars and everything else that had only been skin-deep – she looks so indistinct in the mirror. A Shepard untouched by what she is meant to have gone through.

Iza stands in front of the mirror, looking at her pale reflection in the dreary light of the small bathroom. Still looks like she's twenty-nine years old, but the hair has changed color to her natural ashen grey blonde and is shorter than it was (Miranda says she can't be so damn fussy all the time, and she isn't, she's just trying to gauge a timeline of how they rebuilt her, at what point her hair began growing). The blue eyes have luminous orange flecks in the irises if she looks close enough; the pale skin with thin scar lines criss-crossing her body, the skin weaves not merged completely, red cybernetics glowing beneath.

Close, but not quite. In the grander scheme of things, it's all minor complaints. She is alive. Just two years when she hadn't really been.

Zaeed calls her name impatiently. She peels herself away from the reflection and comes out to stand in front of him him, no pants, officer jacket unbuttoned and barely covering. (In reply to his wondering about her physical assets, she'd taken him up on it. She was curious to be seen through another's eyes. Medical assessments were too clinical, sterile and void of opinion.)

"Eyes, not hands," she states firmly, shrugging off the top with one fluid motion.

She knows the Illusive Man will end up seeing what she's doing. Iza with Zaeed: Zaeed inspecting her body's peculiarities with a mercenary's eyes, reclined on the barely-used couch, arms folded across his chest. Calling her a little baby until she shows him her back: along the length of the entire spine runs a red scar. He describes it to her: calls it gruesome.

When she dresses, Zaeed gets up to leave but stops at the entrance. "You're fucking gorgeous and fucking crazy," he says casually, hand scratching at his sun-shaped tattoo on his neck. Not offended, not angered. Just stating facts. "If you weren't my boss..." He doesn't finish the sentence, just steps out and leaves.

She returns to the desk, settling down in the ergonomic swivel chair gingerly.

In her pile of messages from the Illusive Man, the brief letter about Zaeed sits on top.  _I felt you might need a man with his skills on your mission, so I arranged to have him join you_. Iza can't be certain (a man like the Illusive Man would never submit to any definition remotely palpable), but part of her suspects he had hoped for a different outcome. To keep her distracted, and content, and whatever else.

He's making mistakes already, playing the game as if the odds are on his side.

As her mind delves into the possibilities in which she can further her disobedience and crush his expectations of her, she snags across the idea that he's there already – one step ahead of where she's trying to outrun him. The cards have just been dealt, she's still coming from the underdog position: she's barely been alive for a few days. There's time to gauge her next move. Time to predict his. Plenty of space to find a way to outmaneuver him.


	3. III: Fix You in a Formulated Phrase

Iza Shepard lights up a cigarette while waiting for the hologram to scan and load, EDI reminding Shepard that smoking is not a supported feature of the communications room.  _Just one_ , she bargains, and EDI doesn't argue – it's not something she does with Shepard. She informs and watches, the video and audio uptake compiled into neat bundles and transmitted to the Illusive Man.

Shepard knows. Not hard to miss the AI and Miranda both following her moves, weighing her every decision, comparing them to the goals of Cerberus and drawing conclusions to achieve a judgement. (Miranda's reports tainted by personal feelings of injustice at Shepard getting  _a favorable treatment no others would have been given in their dire situation_. Shepard intercepted a snippet once, it amused her.)

When they're both loaded, holographic entity and being of flesh in their separate corners of space, nothing is said for the first few seconds, both smoking, eyes flickering up and down over the other's static representation. Measuring each other up, taking the other in. His dress is flawless: navy blue suit with black lapels and an off-white collar, but with creases at the waist and groin from sitting still. Impeccably stylish, almost alluring.

"I heard you went to the Presidium," the Illusive Man says, first to break the silence, swiveling the stubby glass and its contents in his left hand.

"The parts I'm cleared to access." Which isn't much, just the human embassy offices. The rest of it are off-limits, all her rights revoked, all clearances stripped away, security alerts flashing. Partially because she is, in paperwork-terms, clinically dead and with a memorial erected on Elysium, and partially because she is nowadays associated with a terrorist organization.

 _Iza Shepard: ex-military, ex-Spectre, current occupation: terrorist_. The thought made the corners of her lips twitch upwards.

"I hope you found it enlightening as to where our position is."

"The Alliance isn't exactly thrilled I'm alive," she says, thumb and index finger rubbing against her forehead. (Councilor Anderson, to be exact, said:  _Unlike certain other parties, we respect the individual's right to stay dead_. As if she was an abomination.)

The Alliance and Council tried handing her off to the other, tossing her between them like a hot potato. She gave up and walked out. Their resources were out of her reach, their restrictions and doubts limiting. She wasn't an Alliance marine anymore, even though a hell of a lot of people liked calling her by her military rank.

"They liked you when you were the quiet hero, obeying their command." He flicks his cigarette against the chair's built-in ashtray. "It could have been useful to push for Spectre re-installation though, but your choice."

She smiles, her headache worsening. The joyous torture of bending over backwards to please the Council had been a frustration enough before she died, having a Spectre who just didn't know when to shut up and lay down dead made them absolutely impossible to deal with. It was a certain kind of freedom, strings attached of course, but better than before.

He'd been right, though. They had all turned away and given up after her body was lost on Alchera, but not him. If she wasn't so dubious, she would maybe be a bit grateful. End of the day, he wants her the same as all others do: a pliable Shepard who can see his viewpoint and act accordingly. Maybe – if she finds it agreeable.

Death has changed her into less of a dumb field-soldier now, and more of a wartime general – except that the spectrum of enemy to ally is blurring. The line of employer and... Wherever they are going... Muddling. A more intriguing battlefield, to be certain, but it came with an abundance of traps.

"I'll get by."

"As you say." He seems amused to have her in his hands with nowhere else to turn. She'll play the part for now, tie a mask to cover her face and pull him closer.

"And how do you like me?"

He goes silent for a moment, lips pursed, brow furrowed as he thinks the answer through.

"I trust in your judgement and hope you recognize that our goals are not mutually exclusive. Beyond that, you're free to act as you please as long as the end result is achieved." Words, albeit chosen carefully, that carry no meaning and avoid the heart of the matter.

"That's not what I meant." The cigarette has burnt down to the filter, sizzling against her fingertips. She puts it out against the bottom of her shoe, shaking off the smoldering embers that fly out in the darkened surroundings, glowing faintly before dying.

"Let's say I know better than to try and control you."

"How about manipulating me?"

His eyes shift slightly, one corner of his mouth moving up. "Now that is a different matter entirely."

She wonders if she should make him sign a contract stipulating the exact end of their business transaction:  _her body and life on the line for the greater benefit of the galaxy, terminated upon either fulfillment of ending Collector threat or death of either party. Long-term agreement on Reaper threat negotiable pending Collector result_. Not that either of them would honor such an agreement: they're too good at breaking rules to stop now.

"I believe we're done for now." His hand smoothly presses a button combination on the display appearing over the armrest of his chair. "And Shepard?" There's an almost imperceptible change in tone as her name is uttered from his mouth.

It strikes her that he doesn't often do that, except when he wants to make a point. Leaning forward, she's both eager and hesitant to hear what he has to say – part of her already knows.

"I enjoyed the exquisite show you put on." He smirks before cutting the transmission, glass raised towards her in a cheering toast.


	4. IV: So Rudely Forced

"Lie still, Shepard!"

Jack likes her. She's whistling a tune as the tattoo machine in her hand whirs, needles penetrating Shepard's skin to deposit ink in strict patterns over her back. Three people in Jack's little hidey hole, with Shepard tensing and relaxing as the needle moves across her back. Zaeed, watching them from where he sits the stairs, remarks that she ought to skip over the pink scar tissue down the spine. "That won't tattoo well," he says.

Shepard looks up at him: she's resting flat on her stomach on the dingy bed, torso completely naked. His eyes go down to the glimpse of breasts between her arms and then away.

"Avoid it then," she says to Jack over her shoulder.

"Your choice, your weird back." Eyebrow raised, but she shrugs and carries on.

The three of them discuss their tattoos, mainly because Zaeed wants to brag about his neck one that was done the old-fashioned way, and Shepard contorts her face in empathic pain at the thought. Those aged contraptions were still around, toted by some tattoo fanatics to be the only true way to mark your body. They don't hurt too much on the fleshier bits – she knew, having done one on a dare back in her early marine days – but on the tender parts, they stung. They take forever to heal compared to the new method, where crusts form and fall off within a day. Old ones she had to wash, wrap in plastic and take care not to touch with unclean hands for weeks.

Jack hasn't had any old ones done – she thinks they're impractical, which is rich coming from her and her way of dressing. When Shepard says as much, Jack punches the tattoo needle harshly against the back of her rib, making Zaeed laugh. "She's got spirit!"

He likes Jack, and Jack sort of, sometimes, dares to bask in the glow of his adoration. They're already making plans for when it's all over, a pirate ship and plans to live like royalty on Omega between tours. They're like long-lost siblings at the best (and worst) of times, shoving each other around and sniping acid remarks, but not without care. Family never cuts deep enough to be anything but a superficial wound.

Above her head, their mouths compete to out-foul the other, the buzz of the needle drowning out at least part of their conversation. Shepard just enjoys the hum in the background, the dull ache of marking her skin lessening until Jack tenses her hand of a sudden, the strokes jagged and almost stabbing.

"Ah, Shepard," Kelly says as she descends the stairs, datapad in her hands, smiling brightly, "here you are."

Zaeed greets her like he does all the women on the ship he's categorized as 'maybe attainable'. Kelly responds less than enthusiastically before leaning over Shepard's back. She compliments Jack's handiwork.

"No pain, no gain," Jack grunts, one eye moving over the unmarked skin of Kelly. "Want some of this?"

"I'm good for now." Kelly rolls up her sleeve to the armpit and shows a sentence etched on the inside of her arm, letters delicately curved across her sun-kissed skin.  _Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking._  She explains, blush spilling over her cheeks, that it's a maxim she was caught obsessing over during her years at university.

"Bit pointless a saying," Zaeed notes, rubbing his thumb over the curve of the elongated 'g' as he holds her arm in his rough hands. "Don't get the fixation with tattoo needing meaning and all. Just pick something nice and damn stick with it."

"I know, I was a bit pretentious back in the day." Kelly lets the sleeve down, mentions that she got it because of coincidence: that once she got her degree and got out in the world, a man quoted the same passage to her, and she saw it as a signal.

"Don't believe in the hype of the stars trying to send you shitty messages about looking into fucked-up things," Jack grits out, doing a long sweep of the needle along Shepard's shoulder-blade. She looks up and aims, landing a glob of spit at Kelly's feet.

Kelly remains the picture-perfect image of outer calm, not moving an inch. Zaeed flicks a finger against Jack's ear ornament and she puts the machine down, storming up the stairs. He follows, giving the two women behind a shrug.

"Reason you're down here, Kelly?" Shepard asks, pressing her shirt against the front of her body as she stands up. She's frustrated at the interruption – it'll take a long while before Jack calms down enough to complete the back-piece.

"Holovid from the Illusive Man to you." Kelly hands her the datapad and is then dismissed with a wave of Shepard's hand.

When she is alone, she sits down on the stairs and press play.

On the holographic interface, she sees a small square of a video recording of her undressing in front of Zaeed – but it's not Zaeed sitting on the couch, eyes greedily taking in her naked form. It's the Illusive Man. He is relaxed, arms on the top of the backrest, index fingers rubbing against thumbs, head leaning slightly as she turns around to show him her back. Smiling. His mouth moves, but there's no audio: only a flicker of a laugh across Shepard's face.

When she's about to put on her clothing, he turns his face to the camera – to her – and she feels as if his eyes are staring through the screen, through the distance, to land on her face in the present.

When it ends, the display is covered in his writing.  _The most subtle of our acts is to simulate blindness for snares that we know are set for us. We are never so easily deceived as when trying to deceive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both the quote Kelly had tattooed and the one the Illusive Man employs are by La Rochefoucauld, a writer whose tantalizing maxims concerning "theories on human nature concern self-interest and self-love, the passions and the emotions, love, conversation and sincerity (and the lack of it)" (to viciously steal an accurate quote from Wikipedia) greatly inspired my exploration of Shepard and the Illusive Man.


	5. V: A Burnished Throne

There are many ways one could name what Shepard feels in regards to the Illusive Man – lust, desire, fear. She has no doubt that where she is going will lead to dire consequences for one (or both) involved, and yet she can't stop herself, inevitably drawn to him – like he is to her.

Shepard sits down in his chrome chair – the only chair in the room – as she waits for him, observing the subtle movements of the star, the slight shift in energy flares transfixing and almost too bright to watch. His chair, while ergonomically designed, doesn't fit well with her body, making her feel awkward. Like her back is being pushed out of place, slowly but surely.

Without a doubt, the reason he forces her to relinquish her guns and attach a dampener to her amp port is because he fears her too. ( _A little danger makes things exciting_. A sliver of a thought from another ship and two years ago; she still doesn't feel she is who she is meant to be, but the seams on either side of the vast gap have been ripped open, gushing forth and bleeding into the future. It merely reminds her that she prefers to live in the now.)

There's a glass a standing in the depression carved out specifically for it in the armrest, a few drops of whiskey left at the bottom, rim stained with his saliva. She focuses her flickering biotic powers on the glass, lifting it into the air with a strained effort.

The Illusive Man enters through the same door she came in through (shown the way from a darkened corridor by a pale wisp of an assistant, her low voice chattering about how "gaudy light interior design was in space, how typically 2170's") and pauses as he lights a cigarette, taking in the sight of her sitting in his chair, testing her suppressed biotic abilities.

She remains still in the chair – the harshness of using biotics with the dampener making her ache down to her bones. Vaguely, she thinks he says her name, but she's not sure – her eyes just follows him as he strides smoothly across the floor, stopping to stand right in front of her.

The glass breaks in the mass effect field: shards hang suspended mid-air between them.

"Shame about the glass," she says, wiggling her fingers to make the shimmering blue creation bounce up and down, tilted towards him, drops threatening to spill onto his polished shoes.

He smiles as the cigarette trades hands smoothly.

What she could imagine happening between her and the Illusive Man – no, what she  _ached_  to have happen between them – sent a tingling sensation through her body, a warmth yearning for his cool touch, cool eyes, to soothe it.

"What are you trying to achieve?" she asks. Her voice isn't betraying her just yet.

"I'm taking it you're not inquiring about Cerberus motives."

With a flick of her fingers the remains of the glass is sent crashing against the far wall, shattering into tiny pieces. All the while, she holds his gaze steady and unflinching.

" _Your_  motives. To  _me_." Peeling the man away from his life's work.

Putting out the remaining cigarette in the ashtray of the chair, he breathes a final cloud of smoke. Then, he puts his palms flat on the armrests, effectively pinning her down to the chair as he leans in. They're close enough for her to smell him: the acrid smoke, whiskey beneath, a cologne of cedarwood and bergamot at the fringes of her olfactory sensation. Noses almost touching, his unnerving eyes scanning hers.

"Games bore me, Shepard." His voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.

There's a constant thin sliver of space between them, and she is struggling to control herself from crossing the boundary. An ocean of almost but not quite.

"Sore loser?"

His lips are dangerously close – she can feel his breath on hers, eyes locked still. The blue rings of his irises are moving faster than she's ever seen them before, processing information as he takes in the effects they have upon each other.

"I don't play because I always win."

Shepard places her hand at his collarbone, sliding her fingers down and between the buttons of his blazer as she undoes them. He quirks an eyebrow at her, but doesn't say anything as she continues on to work at his shirt, nimbly unbuttoning without fingertips even grazing his skin.

With a push on his shoulders, she slides out of the chair past him without them touching skin to skin, and holds him by his belt as she unzips his pants with fervent determination. Then, taking each garment of clothing between trigger finger and thumb, baring the Illusive Man's skin and his naked body and discarding them on the floor. All the while, keeping her breath even, though she likes what she sees, the firm shape, the trail of white hair across his chest; keeping her hands from his skin with minute precision.

When he's stripped bare, he sits down in his chair, legs apart, letting her see on purpose. There's a distinct erection rising, though it doesn't seem to bother him in the least.

"There," she says, voice more breathless than she'd like. "Evened the field."

"You fascinate me, Shepard." His lips may be smiling, but the rest of his face is deadly cool. "And you play a dangerous game."

"Perhaps." She smirks to herself as she turns around to leave.

Upon the threshold of the room, she looks back at him over her shoulder; the screen has come alive and plays a video recording of her sifting through old belongings in her cabin on the Normandy (she makes a mental note of the angle so she can dismantle the camera later – the one she figured out from his holovid is in pieces already). With a flick of his finger it shifts, but the door closes before she can make out wherefrom.


	6. Interlude I: A Concept

It's hard to please Miranda, her perfectionist streak more overwhelming a trait than she's ever likely to admit. Then again, it's part of what the Illusive Man values about her: she won't settle for anything half-done, which has served her well professionally. Less so privately, of course, but she has adamantly refused any attempts for improvement, and strictly put, she's not suffering.

Every report she sends to the Illusive Man these days contain extensive notes on the progress of Shepard, to a point where she is almost neglecting the actual mission details. Her acute observations on Shepard, however, concern him.

Miranda is straight to business as soon as the quantum entangler's transmission stabilizes.

"I just put together a graph with the actual numbers." She transfers charts that appear in front of him, graphs constructing themselves across the screen. "The green line is the projected progress based on what I observed first-hand during Freedom's Progress, with keeping the interrupted awakening in mind."

He flicks his thumb against the filter of the cigarette. What Wilson did still annoys him, and he hasn't been able to trace who he was leaking information to – though since the acquisition of Shepard's corpse from the Shadow Broker, that organization had been a thorn in his side, and he hasn't ruled out their involvement.

"I even gave her the benefit of adjusting it down a bit. And here's the actual, live development." A red line appears on the graph, but where the first one kept rising on a steady path, this one just remained flattened with some small curves barely worth noting.

The Illusive Man tilts his head. The lack of progress  _is_  troublesome.

Miranda's chewing on the inside of her cheek – usually it's more concealed, but she's practically biting a hole through the skin as it stretches and whitens under her gnashing molars. "She was spiking higher on L-3 implants. L-3! The fine-tuning the L-5n offers, the excelling in energy build-up and discharging, it's nothing short of a technological revolution in comparison! But it's not the control – she has plenty of that – it's the force. Four billion credits, and she can't even throw a biotic punch strong enough to knock a krogan off its feet."

Implied: Shepard is just a faint derivative of who she used to be.

The secondary screen comes alive and plays a recording of Shepard standing in the CIC, in conversation with miss Chambers who appears significantly more engaged than the Commander. With a flick of his finger it shifts to showing her practicing biotics alongside Jacob in the cargo hold, Miranda pacing by the wall, tapping a datapad and correcting postures and movements. Zooming in, he notes Shepard isn't even sweating in the surveillance video.

In the communications room, Miranda fixes her eyes on the floor, hand on her hip as she talks – the fingers digging into her suit and leaving dents. "You shouldn't have done what you did. A control chip would have been much easier."

"I did what I thought necessary."

"She's not responding to it."

He's learnt over the years to see when she's nervous. It's a barely-there push of her tongue against her lower lip, making her full pout even more pronounced. She still gets uncertain when she criticizes his ideas, though he has never discouraged her to – she's a valued operative, and reprimanding her for stating her opinion is unnecessary.

Not all of his plans are flawless, because perfection is not a human trait.

"She will, one way or the other." He rubs his thumb against the left temple, feeling another migraine beginning to form. "Keep working to remind her." He waits for her to look up, then smiles slightly. "I trusted you to bring Shepard back, and you did. My confidence in you is undented, Miranda."

His eye glances over the medical report she attached, going over their latest combative engagements in Omega's slums. There is something off about it, but he can't quite put his finger on it until he pulls up Jacob's charts next to hers.

"Did you inhibit the adrenal glands?" he asks, lingering on it for a second before quickly skimming back in the logs.

"Wilson was in charge, he may have..." Miranda must have been concerned by the all too early wake-ups and the difficulties sedating Shepard afterwards, and Wilson had preyed upon it. Her face hardens, jaw set.

Of course. "Mistake." A simple one, easily rectified.

"I'll fix it."

"Please do."

With a light tap on the console, the call is concluded.

EDI's video logs of Shepard are becoming sparser: the Commander has been hard at work figuring out where the cameras are and removing them. Still, there is more than enough – he settles back in the chair and plays the latest EDI has submitted to him.

Iza Shepard... As she is, she is more concept than human, more an idea than being. She lacks the spark, that final touch that will ignite her and turn her into more than a thought, and more than a soldier. The ground-work has been laid down, but he has yet not succeeded in bringing forth the explosion to illuminate her.

Any man can buy a woman a gift through the extranet and add a poor, thoughtless note to it, pre-printed and packaged with the gift. It achieves nothing.

Then, there's him, bestowing Shepard with what he picks himself. With what he has on her. In regards to the salvation of humanity, there are no bounds for how far the Illusive Man will go.

Accessing the files again, he looks them over. Information at his fingertip, a second away from setting in motion many an event.

It's not time, not just yet – however tempting it is. He has to secure a little something from her too, now that she has so foolishly engaged him in her feeble tug-o-war of wills.


	7. VI: I Will Show You Something Different

Shepard sighs as a man spills wine on her shoes without apologizing, and she wipes the offending liquid off on the back of his pants without him noticing. "How long?"

"This will take a while," Kasumi whispers across the radio, distracted, working on cracking a code. "Enjoy the party for a bit. Can't hurt to have some fun."

The guests are dull, and she can't keep a serious face as they discuss if Commander Shepard is alive or not – even though the grin tugging at her lips never fully breaks out, she'd rather not risk a covert mission – and sets a course straight for the bar. When she gets there, it's empty – yet before she's even settled down on a stool the bartender places a glass in front of her. "Compliments of an admirer," the bartender says with a casual shrug, indifferent to what the guests get up to. Fingering the rim, she studies the liquid: clear, but with a blue tint on the surface and an orange glow to the bottom. The taste is dull, a faint tickle of some exotic fruit diluted by too much water.

"Evening." A warm presence pressing against her back, hoarse voice stroking her ear, a voice recognizable to her anywhere. She tenses.

"Let me show you how to properly drink it." The Illusive Man's hand closes over hers, moving his wrist to get hers to mimic the motion. "Stir before you taste it." With a gentle push, he brings the glass to her mouth and tilts it back, allowing her to sip a mouthful before putting it down on the counter again.

The alcohol doesn't taste of anything until she swallows it down, at which point the palate stings momentarily and another sensation unfurls across her tongue, traces of hyacinth, cinnamon and chili mingling with the sweetness of pineapple and strawberries. It's nearly too much, and she draws in a quivering breath to dampen the intense effects.

His thumb catches a drop lingering on her lower lip, and brings it to his own mouth, sampling it. A shiver runs down her spine, heat radiating in abrupt pulses from where he touched her. "Cheap label," he grumbles, dissatisfied. "My apologies for the poor choice in drinks, but Hock doesn't know good alcohol if it was to drown him." Each word he speaks vibrates against her lightly-clad back, hot smoke-tinged breath against her ear.

Finally, she's able to dislodge her dumbstruck tongue. "What are you doing here?"

"Hock is an associate to Haribon Military Industries," he says nonchalantly. "I enjoy having a degree of personal involvement in all the affairs going on in Cerberus."

"You don't have a problem with what might happen to him tonight?"

"He's more of a headache than an asset, albeit a good financier. Consider my presence here a way to pay my respects should the worst happen to him." His voice drops an octave. "Knowing you, the worst will."

A man stumbles behind them, tumbling against the Illusive Man who braces himself from falling through putting a hand on Shepard's thigh, the fingers digging down. She hears a soft, slurred apology – or she think she does – all she can focus on is his fingers on the inside of her thigh, fingertips connected with soft, naked skin.

"You're not here just for Hock." Words, choked out from a throat thick with conflicted desire.

His lower lip grazes her earlobe, nose in her hair. "No," he whispers after a few seconds, "maybe I'm not."

His hand slides up her thigh, just a few inches, before he stops, leaning over her shoulder to peek, and then chuckles against her cheek. "That's why you were walking so awkwardly," his hand leaving their trail to push her knees together. "Clever. Here I thought it was because you simply couldn't walk in heels."

Shepard tugs the skirt down, covering the pistol she has strapped to the inside of her thigh. She's not going to ask him to keep touching her, no matter how much she wants it –  _damned pride_. "Makes me look the part of mercenary unused to attending these social functions."

Pulling out the seat next to her he sits down, resting his elbows on the dark wooden counter. He looks slightly different, muted: she notices that his eyes have lost the light blue glow and she squints – there's still a tiny flit of movement going on in the irises. Contacts, she guesses: but his countenance is as cold as ever.

She takes the entire remaining glass of alcohol in one swig, the burn horribly pleasant.

"Your game is back-firing," the Illusive Man remarks, amused, holding a cigarette between thumb and forefinger. As he flicks the lighter open, the bartender appears and gently asks him to save it, directing him to smoke outside.

The Illusive Man nods, closing the lighter and putting the long cigarette back into its sleek packaging.

While he is distracted by that slight gesture, she seizes the opportunity. Awkward as she is at flirting (she never was one for it, more blunt and to the point) she takes his hand in hers and closes her lips around his thumb, sucking gently, tongue laving at the smoke-tinged pad and swirling over his knuckle, all the while keeping eye contact.

The unexpected gesture draws the desired reaction from him, despite the cold glare and frozen smile on his lips: his thumb curves in her mouth, pressing into her tongue, as if begging. She gives him a light bite before letting go with an audible, wet pop.

"You underestimate me," she says.

If Shepard wasn't threading unknown waters before, she sure as hell is now.

Kasumi comes in through the radio, saying that she's ready to pull off the heist.

They exchange a final look of annoyance, frustration and poorly concealed desires before parting.


	8. VII: Looking Into the Heart

_51%_.

Shepard expects it, aiming her pistol at the door when it slides open. After all, she's pushing a boundary that is bound to result in a backlash.

"What are you doing?" Miranda says angrily as she realizes what is going on. "Are you–"

"Yes." Shepard cuts her off, waving the gun towards the chair on the opposite side of the desk. "Take a seat." The dubious cracking VI is taking its time getting past the elaborate Cerberus security Miranda has on her personal terminal, and Shepard impatiently taps her fingers against the desk as the progress slows down once again.  _58%._

Miranda remains remarkably calm, though her voice takes on an acidic tone as she speaks. "What do you expect to find?"

"What do you expect me to?"

"Nothing that would be of interest. Cerberus is not as one-sidedly evil as you would believe, Commander." She avoids saying anything that could pique Shepard's attention.

"I'll reserve judgement on that topic." Shepard leans back in her chair. "But that's not what I am interested in, nor what I need to know."

"I have kept no vital information from you related to the mission at hand."

 _67%_. Shepard shakes her head – there's still a dull ache in the back of it, pulsating out in intermittent bursts from the biotic implant. Miranda adjusted something and won't tell her exactly what it was, but then Miranda has a habit of concealing what Shepard truly wants to know. Mostly, she's looking for angles, and understanding the hooks the Illusive Man has. She found no other solution but to hack her computer, and she has no qualms about it. Plus, it's fun watching that Cerberus fool squirm in her seat.

"I was never interested in the missions."

There's not a lot of amusement to be found on the Normandy during FTL jumps, but there is always the prospect of annoying Miranda. The Illusive Man hasn't been in touch for a few days and she's starting to miss his pompous little notes, his husky voice and arrogant flirting. The games they play keep her on her toes. Waiting does not.

"Then what is it?" Miranda's frustration is showing, much to Shepard's amusement.

"Tell me about what wrong during Project Lazarus." It's a wild gamble – she has no hard facts to lean on, but the fact that Miranda has taken an increased interest in every little aspect of what Shepard does to her body and even put her under the knife again is more than enough.  _80%_. She trusts her gut instincts. "Either tell me, or I'll read about it. One of these paths won't make me distrustful of you. One of these choices will improve our working relationship. Think hard, miss Cerberus."

Miranda folds her arms, and it is decided. "Threats don't work on me."

"Shame." They sit out the rest of the download time in tense silence, and when it's done Shepard shoots the console. The electrics fizz and crackle as Shepard leaves, and in the elevator she begins eyeing through the initial data her VI has decrypted. It's not much, just a fraction of what she managed to get, but she can work with it.

Barely has she made it into her cabin before the comm begins blinking and she keys through the incoming call.

"If you wished to talk, you could have called," the Illusive Man says without preamble, though he sounds vaguely amused at her antics. "Antagonizing Miranda is a very roundabout way of getting what you want."

"Her trust is difficult to gain," Shepard responds, flicking through the first file the VI has managed to crack open. Some sentences are corrupted by a failsafe virus, and the attached video files are pure static.

"As is yours."

"I trust in many things," she says, shutting off her omni-tool.

"But not people."

"Individuals are difficult. They have motivations, morals, hang-ups, objections. Despite how hard certain operatives try, it's not feasible to stick a chip in the head of everyone under your command. No matter how wonderful that would be."

The Illusive Man laughs. "Miranda noted that you were not as manipulative as your dossier warned. Good to see you're recovering."

She undoes the fastenings of her officer jacket, stretching out on the bed. "If you trusted me, it would have been faster."

"That's a groundless assertion based on poor observations. I trust you implicitly, Shepard. Accusing me of anything else wounds me."

"I can do so much more than merely wound you." Listening to his voice elicits a reaction in her that she feels no need to deny, and her hand skims over the stomach and downwards. As she plucks at the waist of her trousers, she hears only his breathing and sizzle of a cigarette.

He speaks up just as she slides her hand into her underwear. "I hear you're docking at Omega soon."

"Nowhere else to go when we have no leads."

"You should learn to enjoy the wait, Shepard. It's good for you." He quiets down for a moment, but when he speaks again, she can practically hear the smile across the comm link.

She arches on the bed, biting into the pillow. There is still one camera left, one direct video feed which should allow him a glimpse of what she is doing, but he still refuses to comment on it. Just that enervating, endless silence instead of talking, no difference in his breathing... But it does not matter to her. She can push herself to the edge without his help – yet she still  _thinks_  of him, feeling his eyes on her body.

Moaning shamelessly, she looks straight into the camera, mouthing a word to tease and incite him.

"Crude, Shepard."

"But effective, no?"

He waits for her to catch her breath before speaking again. "While on Omega, try out the Hyperion restaurant in the upper ward. There will be a table waiting for you."

She raises an eyebrow. "Anything else waiting?"

"That would spoil the surprise."


	9. VIII: Throbbing Between Two Lives

**VII: Throbbing Between Two Lives**

* * *

Arriving at the Hyperion, Iza is shown to a lone table in the middle of the busy restaurant. She hesitates as the waiter pulls out the chair for her: it's a vulnerable position, with her six open to attack.

"I have your back, Shepard," the Illusive Man whispers into her earpiece, the smirk obvious even across the radio.

"That's what I'm concerned about," she says under her breath as she sits down, angling the silver ashtray so she can at least have a reflected perspective. Pulling out a cigarette she lights it up, barely letting the filter touch her lips as she fidgets with her fingers, trying to focus on anything else than how precarious a position she is in. Objectively, she knows there is no value in having her die again, but subjectively? She doesn't trust him.

The comm link remains quiet until the waiter returns and places a dish and drink in front of her. She's about to protest that she hasn't ordered anything yet when the Illusive Man interrupts. "My treat," he says. "You've deserved a nice, relaxing dinner, haven't you?" He's mocking her, and she discreetly folds back all fingers except the middle on the table, just to see if he can pick up on that. He chuckles.

"Having dinner on my own is no fun at all," she complains, twirling the cherry-sized green berries on her plate.

"I'm here."

"But not at my table, face-to-face." She pops one of the berries in her mouth, sucking the skin clear off to reveal the light flesh before biting into it. Juice drips down her chin and neck, and she hears a man gasp at a nearby table as she dips the finger down between her breasts to wipe the spill up.

"Why so eager to have me join you?" he asks, and she thinks she hears that voice nearby in the actual room.

"Misplaced hopes, it seems." She glances around discreetly, trying to figure out his exact position, but the constant movement of guests and staff hinders her sight. For a moment, she thinks she sees a silver-haired man at the bar, but it's just a young blonde. "You prefer to watch."

"Not quite, but there are better places for us to face each other. Drink something, you look parched."

Iza is sure he's drawing some twisted pleasure from it all, but complies, sipping on the sweet wine as the next course arrives. Just a dish with three slices of what looks like raw meat, but the Illusive Man stays quiet as she eats them. They taste... Odd, but good.

Only after swallowing the last slice does he speak up, smug and hoarse-voiced from scotch. "The fish you just consumed will react with the wine you drank, causing a toxic reaction fairly shortly."

"The Omega delight," she mutters, remembering the urban legend she heard when she was stationed on the station early on in her career. Back then, she dismissed it, but now her throat constricts as the realization dawns upon her.

"Do you trust in me to save you before your time is up?"

She looks up sharply, then laughs once, drawing a few startled looks from the surrounding tables but she could care less. Death is about to unfurl in her stomach, all because he wants to play a game of trust? To show her the strings he holds?

"It's exactly as you think, Iza." The way he says her first name, how it slides off his tongue, makes her shudder. "Remember who brought you back." He is moving: there's a step echoing in the background, a hitch in his breath.

"You were the one who dragged me out of the grave for my uniqueness."

"Unique, yes, but not the only solution. Trust in humanity's ability to find a way, as you should trust in your own human weakness."

"Taking me down a peg?"

"Hardly. I told Miranda there are other methods of controlling you than a chip."

Why?" she demands angrily, turning in her seat to look around. He is nowhere and she feels her nerves fraying. Dying because he wants to show her exactly how much power he has.

"Because you need to learn to trust in someone other than yourself."

A pistol shot hits the grand chandelier in the middle of the restaurant, throwing it in complete darkness. As the lights go out, a hand seizes her chin and a thumb edges its way between her teeth, forcing her mouth open. She recognizes the taste of the skin on her tongue but catch his wrist nonetheless, the bones almost cracking in her grip.

"Why?" she asks, voice low and icy as the entire restaurant is in a frenzied chaos around them.

"You hold yourself above everyone," he breathes into her ear, moist lips nibbling at her earlobe. "Thinking you can do this alone. That is a very dangerous assumption. You need others to succeed, Iza."

Iza knows what he wants to hear, and smiles in the thick darkness as she utters the words of defeat. "I need you." He wins this round.

A soft, cool liquid trickles down her throat, soothing the obscure burn before it even has a chance to erupt fully. She swallows and sighs, and in that moment when he loosens his grip on her chin she sweeps her leg behind his. He crashes to the ground but pulls her down with him. She lands on top of him, and through their clothes and ribcages she feels his heart beating furiously, just as hers is.

He takes her by the shoulders and reverse their positions, straddling her waist as he holds her down and pin the arms above her head. Then he leans forward and kisses her, pushing his tongue between her lips to meet hers. She can taste the scotch, the smoke –  _him_. The way he moves his tongue against hers is aggressive, demanding, and so very right.

She does need him.

When the lights turn back on, Iza is blinded by the brightness, but she feels him leave. Once she can see again, there is no trace of him... Except in her mouth.


	10. IX: Rising to Meet You

Returning to the captain's cabin onboard the Normandy, Iza instinctively knows there is someone waiting by the time she's outside the door. _Gut instincts_. She strokes her belly, starting to feel like she is a human again. The little details that she missed.

 

She can smell the Illusive Man before she sees him, the unmistakable blend of sandalwood and smoke. The cabin is dark, the lights put out except for the smoldering tip of a cigarette that illuminates his face as he drags in a deep breath.

 

"Shepard," he says with a flicker of a grin. He doesn't have time to add much to that before she has him pinned to the couch, her biotics flaring as she holds up a glowing blue fist, ready to crush his head with it.

 

"I am not some toy to play with," she says through gritted teeth, feeling the rage surging through her. "My life is not something to play with."

 

"Losing is not enjoyable?" His voice is still smug, and he exhales a cloud of smoke in her face. "Then perhaps you should put an end to your little game."

 

She grunts, dispelling the biotic field as she leans back, still glaring at him. The position she is in – straddling his lap – causes the tight skirt to slide even further up her thighs. His free hand comes to rest on the bared leg even as he keeps his eyes level with hers, offering her a cigarette. She accepts it after a moment, lighting it up through pressing the tips together.

 

"To your credit, you were doing quite well," he says, his thumb circling upwards on the inside of her leg.

 

"You were doing this just to entertain me?"

 

He only smiles in the dim glow, putting out the cigarette in the ash tray. As he leans forward she follows in the motion, arm slung around his neck to steady herself, the fingers slipping below the collar of the suit to feel the warm skin of his neck.

 

"What is it you want, Iza?" His voice is low, barely a murmur.

 

She leans back, feeling the metal implants in her back moving smoothly as she stretches to put the cigarette out. Then she snaps back up, fast as lightning, hand at his throat as she pushes him back. Under her palm she feels the heat and pulse, the apple in his throat moving as he swallows, eyes narrowed.

 

Words are useless, Iza decides, her lips crashing against his in a furious kiss. There is only the raw need as their mouths meet, tongues touching and breathing growing ragged. His hands grab at her hips, fingers digging in harshly as he lifts her up and staggers slightly under the weight of a military woman – all muscles and no finesse – but he is quick to throw her on the bed.

 

As he catches his breath, she shimmies out of the dress and watches in rapt attention as he approaches. He is slow, a bastard grinning as he comes closer. Impatience getting the better of her, she hooks a finger in the lining of his pants, never once looking away from his cold eyes. She is the one who pulls him onto the bed, pushing him down onto the sheets as he tries to hold on to her and continuously fails, her movements one step ahead as she evades his grasp.

 

It's not until he slides the hand down along her torso to cup the mound of her sex that he manages to get her still. In that moment he flips them around, so it is her writhing with back on the sheets and his mouth wandering across her body. She arches up against it, whimpering as he licks and nibs at her flesh, hands pulling at his hair in frustration – _that's not where she wants his attention_...

 

“Patience,” he mutters against the muscled flat of her stomach, tip of his tongue dipping into the navel as a finger goes between her legs. The tongue moves further and further down, teasing, teeth just grazing at the right points to elicit enough of a reaction. His hands alternate between cupping and parting, tongue pressing closer to the point where she grasps at the sheets, every single muscle in her body tense.

 

She shudders, shaking, but he lingers on much to her surprise. He always seemed like the type who would wipe his mouth and leave with no parting words.

 

A litany of curses and pleas drip from her lips as his lips trail back up her torso, but he puts one hand over her mouth to stop the words and his other between her legs. This time she has no choice but to look directly at him as his long fingers skims over her sensitive spots and bring her to that point where she feels about to snap in two before the pleasure comes, warm and soft, spreading through her body.

 

When he removes his hand from her mouth she snaps her teeth, nostrils flaring. She can't tell what he is thinking, all she sees his even row of perfect white teeth and glowing irises, yet each time he tries to speak she is there to silence him with a furious kiss.

 

They stay in bed, the Illusive Man still wearing his suit and she in just her bra, getting tangled in the sheets each time they move. It gets harder for her to stay awake, the wine and fine food and his actions all coming together. Her eyelids sag further and further, and the last thing she hears as she drifts off is his soft laugh.

 

“Pick your opponent carefully, Iza,” he whispers in her ear, biting her earlobe just a little.

 

The words still ring in her head as she wakes up the next morning, the cabin showing no signs of his presence. Not even the surveillance video gives any clue that he was here, but the distinct smell lingers on. _He can't erase every trace of himself_ , Iza thinks as she buries her nose in the pillow. _No matter how hard he tries._


End file.
